When a season is initialized, a set of incoming draftees will be
generated. In hockey leagues, this will be random generation of players;
while in other sports it will use players that graduated from a
college league.

The draft will generally run one round per day or slower. You may either
send in draft orders each day, or you may send in one set of orders at
the start of the draft period that will cover the entire draft. The
former option makes for less work, but requires keeping tabs on the
draft list every round. Draft orders are submitted with the "Draft Orders"
button in your team control menu.

After the rounds have been run, the draft will be ended. When ending
the draft, any teams that still have holes on their roster will draft
players to fill the holes. From this point on, all teams are expected to
maintain legal rosters.

As in real-life, it is impossible to be certain how good a certain rookie
will be when he hits his prime. In training camp, rookie abilities are
randomized to reflect the uncertainty in the scouting process. Thus a
player who looked like a sure-fire future superstar may become only a
future starter; alternately he may become even better. There is no way
of knowing which players will overachieve and which will underachieve in
the pros, compared to their college play.

All young players are expected to improve with age. However, player
development isn't this simple. Some players start with more development
than others; these can be seen by the high "training" ratings in their
abilities. Some players develop faster (peak sooner) than others; this
can't be predicted except that perhaps a player with a high training level
has gotten there because he's a quick study. Every season, abilities are
randomized slightly (although not by much), which may help a player who
was slightly worse than another to be slightly better later on. Also,
all young players have a chance of breaking out one year; something seen
by a significant increase in abilities during training camps. Lastly, a
major injury may decrease a player's ability.

One final note on player development. Certain abilities (such as speed
in football) are more "athletic"; others (such as intel in football) are
more "learned". Athletic abilities tend to peak sooner, while learned
abilities peak later.

This all sounds rather vague for a reason - there is no formula to
predict what a player's abilities will be 10 seasons from now. There are
a couple rules of thumb. First, a player with a lower training level has
greater potential for improvement. Second, a younger player has greater
potential for improvement. Third, all other things being equal, the
better rookie will probably be the better veteran.